Letters to the Editor: May 6, 2019: Rocket rain of terror

Readers of The Jerusalem Post have their say.

MAY 5, 2019 21:37

Remnants of the rocket that hit the factory in Ashkelon (photo credit: POLICE SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT) — Remnants of the rocket that hit the factory in Ashkelon

(photo credit: POLICE SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Rocket rain of terror

Regarding “Close to 300 rockets fired toward Israel” (May 5), (now 500+ rockets) if Iran or Korea test fire rockets into the sea, the whole world is critical of this action.

Now when Israel gets bombarded with hundreds of rockets, the world criticizes Israel, despite the calls for elimination of all Jews in the world, daily riots, killings, knifings, burning of crop lands and car rammings perpetrated on its citizens by its enemies!

I suggest informing the world that our enemies must flee to open areas, as the Israeli army will level the terrorist infrastructure.

Alternatively, we should deduct from the taxes we collect all damage costs resulting by their actions! This is even more legitimate than the deduction of tax moneys because of their payments to their “martyrs.”

S. GELGOR
Tel Aviv

It is difficult to put into words the frustration one feels over the manner in which we are handling the Gaza situation. If we start with the premise (based on vast past experience) that regardless of how we react to 500+ rockets fired at us, we will be deemed the guilty party, then why not do what should have been done since Day One? Namely, declare the Gaza experiment an abject failure and end it. Offer free passage for residents to whichever Arab country they wish to emigrate. And to incentivize them? Advise them that within 30 days all water supplies and electrical power will be terminated!

Enough is enough.

MICHAEL D. HIRSCH
Tzur Yitzchak

Failed PA leadership of the century

“Why does Israel need the American Peace Plan?” (May 3) attributes too much power to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is the Palestinian leadership that is the stumbling block on the road to peace. Yasser Arafat and PA President Mahmoud Abbas flatly rejected proposals that would have given them all that they claim to want (a first-ever-to-exist Arab state of Palestine on essentially all of the disputed land, with the possibility of shared governance in parts of Jerusalem).

The unilateral withdrawal from Gaza resulted in missiles fired at Israeli population centers, tunnels dug under Israeli territory to facilitate the murder and abduction of Israelis, and incendiary devices launched into Israel to set crops and nature reserves ablaze.

It is hard to imagine how the “Deal of the Century” will produce what Israel needs – a partner for peace.

Someone will have to convince the PA leadership that the nation-state of the Jews is not going to be destroyed or changed into a Muslim-majority state, that the world is not going to continue supporting millions of descendants of Arabs who fled an Arab-initiated war 70+ years ago, that the prime goal of good leadership is building a future for the people under its administration, and that the conflict must end when a peace treaty is signed.

TOBY F. BLOCK
Atlanta, GA

Give former diplomats a role

Thanks for publishing the important article “Israel’s former diplomats are a wasted national resource (May 5). Long overdue.

DAVID ZOHAR
Ambassador, retired

Unleash some outrage

Regarding “Holocaust Remembrance Day” (May 2), in our Holocaust remembrances, we elaborate on our suffering, fear, sense of loss and “Never Again.” What is missing is rage – not only about what happened, but against most of the world that not only did not lift a finger but actually abetted the awful slaughter.

Whether it was the insidious White Paper closing our homeland’s gates exactly when we needed to enter here the most; the USA’s refusal to admit refugees – not even those from the ship St. Louis who were returned to their death in Germany; most countries refusing to issue transit visas enabling Jews to escape the European inferno. These events hindered the Nazis from expelling the Jews then motivated them to exterminate us – the Final Solution. Later, when the allies were winning the war, they refused to bomb the railway to Auschwitz – this when their airplanes would overpass the camp to bomb surrounding targets. This encouraged the Nazis to proceed and the crypto-Nazi Europeans to steal Jewish property and organize pogroms against Jews returning to their homes.

Let’s also not forget that very few of the perpetrators were put on trial, much less receiving punishment. Out of the 6,500 SS guards at Auschwitz, only 49 were prosecuted. Much of the stolen Jewish property has still not been returned for one “legal” reason or another.

So let us also scream “J’Accuse” at all those who assisted and made the Holocaust possible.

ALFRED INSELBERG
Professor, Tel Aviv University
Holocaust Survivor

As is well known, the Allied Air Forces did not bomb the railway tracks to Auschwitz. My late father, Lucien Harris, was one of those who tried to intervene to stop the slaughter.

As a flight lieutenant in the RAF, he learned from Zionist friends about the Holocaust and went immediately to London to RAF command. He found his way into the Operations Room where he told the commanding general about the Holocaust. He asked the general to send bombers to cut the railway lines to the concentration camps, but the answer was that there were “not enough aircraft” and that “in any case, defeating Hitler would save the Jews...”

D. ZOHAR
Jerusalem

‘Kosher’ antisemitism

“Secondary antisemitism” (May 2) points to a link between anti-Israelism and antisemitism. I would argue that anti-Israelism is antisemitism.

Anti-Israelism is a form of antisemitism that seeks to delegitimize, discredit, dismantle and ultimately destroy the people and State of Israel. Sadly, anti-Israelism is socially acceptable – even among Jews.

The litmus test for anti-Israelism, as opposed to “we disagree with the policies of the current government” might include (a) Can you make a distinction between defensive measures and Nazism? (b) Would you agree that pre-Roman “Palestine” was known as “Judea” because that’s where the Jews lived? (c) Do you think it’s antisemitic to boycott Jewish but not Arab rentals in a particular neighborhood, or would you consider it simply a political statement?

There are times when anti-Israelism would be a better description than anti-Zionism. In popular culture, Zionism is often considered a colonialist and nationalist movement, two “verbotens” that resulted in the “occupation” of “Palestinian land.” Let’s leave the 19th century behind in this context. This is the 21st century. Israel is not aspirational; it’s a fact. Those who wish to weaken or dispose of us are anti-Israelists.

And, by definition, antisemites.

MAIA ARON
Kfar Sava

In “Saudi Arabia offered PA $10b to accept peace plan” (May 1) we read that the Trump administration “was prepared to give the Palestinians the land they already live on.”

Apart from being arrogant enough to act like, or rather, override, God by deciding who lives where, America appears to support the suicidal two-state solution.

While it’s true that if the lie that “the Palestinians are the indigenous people” is repeated enough, it becomes an accepted truth, has anyone considered what the resulting two-state solution would actually mean?

Jews would remain on the coastal plain, the southern portion of which is Philistia, i.e. the land of the Philistines, while the Palestinians would live in the West Bank, the southern portion of which is Judea, i.e. the land of the Jews.

If that doesn’t expose the absolute stupidity of modern diplomacy, then you should read Douglas Adam’s description of the world as being a lunatic asylum and weep.

BOB KNIGHT
Modi’in

The power of five seats

Regarding “Don’t Cave” (May 5), I agree completely with the title – but that’s all.

It is the prime minister who should not cave into Liberman’s demands. The writer would have us believe that a party with only five Knesset seats should be able to control the political destiny of the country. In what world does this make sense?

The writer is clearly against the PM, against the religious parties and believes in the sanctity of the Reform and Conservative movements in America.

The Kotel controversy is a fabricated issue, fueled by demands of Jews who probably never come to Israel and rarely go to a synagogue. What is their beef? Do they jump off the plane at Ben-Gurion and rush to pray at the Kotel? No! They rush to the beaches in Tel Aviv – and that is perfectly fine, but don’t pretend that they care passionately about Jerusalem’s holy places. Diaspora Jews who care about Israel – and not the fifth column socialist Democrats – do not see the Kotel issue as an issue.

Keeping our Jewish faith strong and vibrant seems to irk the writer. How far would he have us change Orthodox practice? Perhaps pig roasts should be allowed at the The Kotel plaza, because some Jews hold that eating it is okay. The draft bill may not be perfect, but surely with all the brains in the Knesset, alternative solutions can be found. Liberman, a spectacularly failed defense minister, has no right to play with the future of the country; for the writer to suggest otherwise is naïve and dangerous.

M. LEVENTHAL
Yerushalayim/Toronto

Don’t confuse them with the facts

The answer to the question “How can Jews once again be unsafe in Europe?” (May 3) is simple: antisemitism is endemic in European culture/civilization!

The period after the Holocaust, when most Europeans felt guilty over what they had done was an exception. Now they are returning to “normal,” denying the Holocaust, denying Jews the right to self-determination and resurrecting the old antisemitic canards.

It’s irrational, but it’s easier than thinking or actually facing the facts. They will return to the usual act of self-denial, when they blame their own shortcomings on the usual suspects. My advice to Jews is to get out while you still can.

JACK COHEN
Beersheba

Doesn’t hate the Jews?

“I have nothing against the Jews” (May 1) is a regrettable example of poor editorial judgment in The Jerusalem Post. Why should it be front page news that an antisemite claims that he does not hate the Jews? While you were at it, you missed the most important question – namely, to ask if some of his best friends are Jews.

MOSHE GOLDBERG
Jerusalem

Unbelievable that a newspaper with the prestige, status and influence of The New York Times ran in its international edition an antisemitic cartoon reminiscent of cartoons published in Germany during the reign of Adolph Hitler.

This cartoon is repugnant, disgraceful, sickening, hateful, disgusting, poisonous, scandalous, despicable... I could go on and on. Obviously the Times’s reputation for objectivity and fairness is tremendously overrated.

The damage this cartoon has inflicted on world Jewry is incalculable and cannot be repaired by any amount of apologies and explanations.

Shame on you, New York Times.
SRUL ZUNDER
Ra’anana

Our deed, indeed

Regarding “Danon to UNSC: Bible is Jewish deed to Land of Israel” (May 1), tireless Israel defender UN Ambassador Danny Danon said that Israel’s rights are founded on four pillars, one of which is legality, and cites the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a political expression by Britain of support for a homeland for the Jewish people.

While no legal rights were created by the declaration itself, Israel’s legal rights were created in 1922 when the declaration was incorporated into an international Mandate for Palestine treaty. Those unabrogated rights still stand today, even though Israel critics find it difficult to admit that.

The Bible as the Jewish deed to Land of Israel is certainly a valid argument, particularly as the geographical territory designated as Palestine by Britain was based on the biblical formula “from Dan to Beersheba,” but in my view, Israel’s preeminent rights were established by much of the world through its intolerance and persecution of the Jewish People for two millennia, thus providing the moral imperative for the Jewish State.

MELVYN LIPITCH
London and Kiryat Ono

The heat is on

Kudos to Tal Harris for his April 30 article, “Why only ‘unnatural’ deaths?” in which he wonders why deaths due to severe climate events are not given the same attention as deaths due to terrorism. He gives many examples of deaths due to recent major storms, floods and droughts that receive far less coverage than the recent horrific acts of terrorism.

Of course terror attacks should receive significant coverage, but why is the media and the public not recognizing the many wakeup calls that we are receiving from recent severe climate events?

The Intergovernal Panel on Climate Change, an organization composed of leading climate experts from many of the world’s nations has warned that we may have only until 2030 to make ‘unprecedented changes’ in order to avert a climate catastrophe. Just last week, former UK Labour leader Ed Miliband argued that climate threats are so serious that we need the equivalent of a “war footing” to respond.

It is urgent that Jews lead efforts to reduce climate change and help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.

RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PHD
Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island